Great workmanship in Tanzania

We recently returned from two and a half weeks away, mainly in Tanzania. For some of that time we stayed in a village called Mande, near Moshi, on the lower slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro. We were hosted by the parents of a friend of my husband, who couldn't stop telling us how much they liked having our company. They were great hosts, with a welcoming and open attitude and wonderfully hearty Tanzanian home cooking.

The famous Mount Kilimanjaro

It was a very peaceful place compared to busy, traffic-filled Kampala - except when all the village roosters were crowing in canon (which could start as early as 3am!), or when the pigs could see their food being prepared and started making excited and impatient grunting noises, or when some of the village ladies gathered in the front room of the house to sing hymns before studying the Bible together. Not all noise is unwelcome! One day they were singing 'How Great Thou Art' in Swahili and I went and joined in in English, which was wonderful.

As I stood outside one evening looking up at the black night sky with its brilliant stars, the first verse of that hymn (see below) immediately came to mind. God's workmanship is truly magnificent! We saw so much of the variety of creation as we travelled around - flat, dry plains dotted with small villages of mud huts; lush tropical forests with red fertile soil; rocky outcrops scattered over the landscape; looming mountains; rolling hills... We also had the opportunity to take a three-day safari to some of the nearby parks and we saw such a variety of creatures for the first time. Again, this reminded us of the grandeur of what God made with a word and to which he gave life and breath and everything.

One of many brilliantly coloured lizards we saw in Dodoma.

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the works thy hand hath made;

I see the stars, I hear the might thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

Then sings my soul, my Saviour Lord, to Thee:

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, my Saviour Lord, to Thee:

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

"Window shopping"

'Window shopping' takes on a whole new meaning in Kampala. You don't have to go to shops to pick up emergency (and not so emergency) items. You don't even have to go to shops to peruse items for sale. You can just drive to wherever you need to go (to work, home from work, or wherever you go on a regular basis) and stop - or even just slow down - near a major intersection, or take a bus from the taxi park, and you can buy almost anything you could wish to take with you.

Vendors at an intersection

Here is the list I've compiled so far of items I've seen available for purchase through car windows at traffic lights or intersections, and through taxi-bus windows in the taxi park in town:

• Food & Drinks
• • Fruit (passionfruit, lemons, limes, bananas)
  • Packet of biscuits
  • Water
  • Soda
  • Crisps
  • Fried Grasshoppers
  • Vegetables (shelled green peas, carrots)
  • Chewing gum
  • Cough lozenges
  • Small assorted fruit plate
  • Cakes
  • Dried corn
• Nuts
• Icecream
• Personal Accessories
• • Handkerchief
  • Belt
  • Jewellery
  • Hair accessories
  • Makeup
  • Sunglasses
  • Socks
  • Necktie
  • Nail clippers
  • Pain balm
• House & Garden
• • Mosquito zapper
  • Mosquito net
  • Table mat
  • Passport holder
  • Toilet paper (10 roll pack)
  • Digital timer
  • Loofah body scrubber
  • Padlock
  • Spanner
  • Screwdriver
  • Multi-grips
  • Flags of various nations
  • Educational wall chart
  • Set of coat hangers
  • Coat rack for wall
  • Mirror
  • TV remote control
  • Plastic storage containers
  • Cloths
  • Fish in a jar aquarium
  • Hedge trimmers
  • Water flask
  • Box of tissues
• Entertainment & Communications
• • Books
  • Newspapers
  • Toy twirling drum
  • Rubber ball
  • Airtime (i.e. mobile phone credit)
  • Inflatable toy penguin
  • Inflatable toy aeroplane
  • Toy instruments
  • Bouncy ball with flashing lights inside
  • Dart board and darts
  • Skipping rope
• Car Accessories
• • Steering wheel cover
  • Mobile phone charger
  • Mobile phone cradle
  • Jumper cables
  • Car floor mats

Vendors at the taxi park selling snacks through taxi-bus windows

Is there such thing as Ugandan English? #3: Semantics

Over the last two weeks I've been blogging some observations about the English spoken in Uganda, organised according to linguistic strata: first phonology, then lexicogrammar. This week I'm up to semantics - the systems of meaning that operate for speakers of a given language.

The main semantic difference I've noticed is really quite closely linked with wording and grammar (lexicogrammar), as it's to do with the way Ugandans perform the speech function of 'command'. For the non-linguists, I first need to briefly explain some things about this concept of 'speech functions' and how they are expressed in wording and grammar. There are basically four speech functions: statement (giving information), question (demanding information), offer (giving goods & services), and command (demanding goods & services). These are meanings which are expressed grammatically in particular ways. The prototypical matches are as follows:

• statement is typically expressed through declarative mood (Subject comes before Finite verb), e.g. The waitress brought some water for washing hands.
• question is typically expressed through interrogative mood (inversion of Subject and Finite verb), e.g. Did the waitress bring some water for washing hands?
• [offer does not have a particular match from among the three mood types]
• command is typically expressed through imperative mood (imperative form of verb, typically with no Subject or Finite), e.g. 'Bring some water for washing hands!'

But these prototypical match-ups do not always have to be used, and a different mood type can be chosen to express a speech function depending on the politeness required or other contextual factors. In Australian English, for example, it's very common to use declarative or interrogative mood to express a command, e.g. 'I need some water to wash my hands' or 'Could you please bring some water for washing hands?'. If you went into a restaurant in Sydney and said 'Bring me a menu!' (because you probably wouldn't ask for water to wash your hands), the staff member would probably take you for a very rude person and not treat you very well.

In Australian English imperative mood tends to be used to express commands in relationships of legitimate authority (e.g. owners to pets, parents to children, teacher to student, government official to citizen especially in written communication) or intimacy (family member or close friend). In the Australian context, the service relationship between a restaurant patron and a staff member is not one of 'legitimate authority'. In another context the restaurant patron might find him/herself serving the restaurant staff member.

It seems that in Ugandan English, imperative mood is used much more widely for expressing commands, without necessarily carrying the implication that the speaker is either in legitimate authority over, or in an intimate relationship with, the addressee. So you could say 'Bring a menu' or 'Bring some water for washing hands' or 'Pack these leftovers for me' or 'Bring the bill' in a restaurant and it would not be considered out of place.

On a lighter semantic note, I've enjoyed the fact that, in linguistics classes I've been to here, mangoes figure very prominently in examples constructed to illustrate a point, e.g. 'The boy bought a mango'. The mango is culturally much more salient here than in Australia - and cheaper too!

Is there such thing as Ugandan English? #2: Lexicogrammar

Last week I wrote about some of the phonological features of Ugandan English as I have observed it over the past 6 weeks or so. This week I've put together some of the lexicogrammatical features that differ from other varieties of English (particularly Australian English, of which I'm a native speaker).

What appears to be a different meaning of the expression 'relieve yourself'...

Lexicogrammatical features include words, morphemes (parts of words that have meaning of their own), and grammar. Most of what I have picked up on are either words that are used in a different sense from their use in Australian English or expressions that are not generally used in Australian English (e.g. 'we pray from such and such a church'). Some of these could probably be dealt with at the level of semantics but I thought it would be more straightforward to treat them as lexical (word) differences.

• 'airtime' - phone credit, which you can buy in various denominations from numerous small stands around the streets, or from machines in supermarkets, or even from people wandering around selling it through taxi-bus windows in the taxi park!
• 'balance' - meaning 'change', e.g. when buying something at a restaurant or market stall and you don't have the exact money, the staff member will say something like 'I'll get you balance'.
• 'benching' [see earlier post]
• 'bouncing' - opposite of 'benching', in which you go to visit someone and they are not home so you have to leave immediately.
• 'born-agains' [see earlier post]
• 'bury' - to attend the funeral of someone, e.g. 'I'm going back to the village to bury my father'. It doesn't mean they will literally carry out the burial, but will attend the burial/funeral ceremony.
• 'by the way' - doesn't seem to be used in the same way as in AusE, but possibly closer to 'in fact' or 'actually'. I don't have a clear example I can remember, but something like the following. Person A: I learnt yesterday that in Luganda you say 'osiibyo tyeno nyabo/sebo' to mean 'hello'. Person B: By the way, we say 'osiibyo tyeno nyabo/sebo' but if it's in the morning, like before 12 noon, you say 'wasuzo tyeno nyabo/sebo' and then after noon you can say 'osiibyo tyeno nyabo/sebo'. In AusE you usually use 'by the way' to talk about something not related to what was previously said.
• 'dear' [see earlier post]
• 'done' [see earlier post]
• 'eh' - high-pitched vocal noise expressing surprise or indignance, especially when recounting some situation that brought this response about. It can also be used with a lower pitch as a checking move when explaining something to someone, e.g. when applying for a bank account, 'You fill in this one, eh?, and then he fills in, eh?' (a bit like some uses of 'ok', 'right', 'yeah' in Australian English)
• etc [see earlier post]
• 'for me' - common at the beginning of an utterance in which someone will either express their opinion or share something about what they have done or decided
• 'ka' is a diminutive prefix in Luganda (& other Bantu lx?) and has been imported into Ugandan English with the same function, e.g. ka-bag (small bag), ka-man (small/insignificant man). Instance in conversation: (a local commenting on a picture of a kangaroo and the fact that it has a pouch) 'Isn't God wonderful, how he made the kangaroo with small legs at the top and bigger legs at the bottom and a little ka-bag here for the baby'. I recently heard it in very high frequency when we went out for a walk and dinner with some friends. For example, our friend was on the phone giving directions to another friend for how to find us: 'We're in the ka-place as you come in the drive way, near the Checkers Supermarket'.
• 'pick' [see earlier post]
• 'picking up' is used, but seems to be only used to mean 'increasing' e.g. 'community radio is picking up in East Africa'
• 'pray from…' [see earlier post]. One local I spoke to about this suggested that it's because in the local languages they don't have an equivalent for 'we go to [such and such a place habitually]'
• rolex - cooked egg rolled up in a chapati (also an item and name that originated at Makerere, apparently)
• 'sorry' [see earlier post] - also has different intonation from Australian English - a long fall from high tone, a bit like when someone says 'sorry' and they don't want to say it but they know they have to (reluctant apology).
• 'thank you too' [see earlier post]. Lately I have realised that it probably comes as a translation of the Luganda 'kale' which is used in response to the word for thank you, 'webalenyo', as well as many other greetings and fixed expressions, and seems to mean something like 'you too' or 'likewise'.
• 'what' [see earlier post]. I have also noticed it more recently in everyday conversation; it's very pervasive, and seems to be used also to mean 'whatever', 'blah blah blah', 'this and that', and 'and so on'. For example, you might hear something like this: "I had to go to the market and then the pharmacy and what and what'.
• 'where do you stay/sleep?' [see earlier post]
• 'You are welcome' [see earlier post]
• 'you people' meaning 'you plural', e.g. when arranging to open a bank account, the bank staff member said something like 'you people wanted to be able to convert into US dollars…'. And when some kids were trying to sell us stuff when we were in a parked car waiting for our friend to come and drive, she came back and said 'do you people want to buy something?' Definitely more acceptable than the hotly contested 'youse' in some varieties of Australian English!

Is there such thing as Ugandan English?

Recently I spoke to a postgrad student here who is interested in the question of whether the English spoken in Uganda should be called 'Ugandan English' or not. Is it a dialect of English? My observation so far, after 6 weeks in Kampala, is that the English spoken here has some systematic differences from other Englishes at pretty much every linguistic level - phonology, wording and grammar, and semantics. So I'd say it's a specific dialect (although I'd be interested to see how it differs from the English spoken in neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania). I have been posting some of my observations of local expressions over the past few weeks (here and here) and thought I'd start to organise them a bit more. I'll start with phonology this time (using as much common-sense language as possible, and no phonetic symbols, for the benefit of non-linguists reading this).

Vowels: The phonological (sound) systems of the Bantu languages spoken in Uganda have only 5 vowels, and a couple of diphthongs, which means that the 20+ vowels in English are usually reduced to these five when speaking English. Vowels such as the 'a' in 'hat' and the 'ur' in 'hurt' do not occur in Luganda (for example) and so they are both approximated to the vowel 'a' as in 'hut'. So the words 'hat', 'hut', 'hurt' and 'heart' all sound much the same (as 'hut'), although sometimes there is a longer vowel in 'heart' and 'hurt' than 'hat' and 'hut'. Likewise the vowels in 'sin' and 'seen' are pronounced the same, as in 'sin'. Also, the 'schwa' vowel that is used in unstressed syllables in English (like the 'a' in 'again' or the 'e' in 'written') is not used, so all vowels are given their full value (again as 'egen', written as 'writ-ehn'). This also affects the rhythm of speech, as there are not as many unstressed syllables.

Consonants: I have only noticed a couple of things so far. One is the 'k' sound, when in combination with 'i' or 'y' sounds, is pronounced as 'ch', e.g. 'particular' is often pronounced as 'particular' (rather than 'partikyular'). I think this is because in some of the local languages, e.g. Luganda and Runyakitara, 'k' is always pronounced 'ch' before 'i' or 'y'. The name 'Runyakitara', for example, is pronounced 'Runyachitara'. It seems that not all varieties of the languages do this, as I've also heard 'Runyakitara'. Another is the sounds 'l' and 'r'. I haven't quite worked out the status of these sounds in the local languages, but I think it's a bit like in Japanese, where the two sounds are not recognised as different sounds but the same 'sound unit' (phoneme) that is pronounced a bit differently depending on the other sounds around it. As with many other world languages, Luganda and other Bantu languages do not have the 'th' sounds as in English 'thin' and 'this', so I think they are usually replaced with 's' for the sound in 'thin' and 'd' for the sound in 'this'.

Intonation: I'm no expert on intonation so it's hard to describe the difference, but I know it's different!

Rhythm: As mentioned above, because the 'schwa' vowel is not used, the rhythm of English spoken here is a bit different. It's not quite the even syllabic rhythm of French (as heard in this cute video), but it's also not quite the 'dum-di-dum' rhythm of British, American (as heard in this amusing video), or Australian (etc) English.

Postcard from Kampala: Observations on public Christianity

We have now been in Kampala for six Sundays and have been struck by the numbers attending the churches we have visited here. Apparently most churches, at least in the city, are very large - a congregation of as few as 100 in one sitting would be very rare. Hundreds, if not thousands, attending in the one day is quite a normal scenario. As a result, many churches run multiple services back-to-back throughout the day and sometimes also on Saturday night. We experienced for the first time the need to arrive early enough to a Sunday service to get a seat inside, and queuing up outside while the previous service finished! This creates a bit of a 'revolving door' feel - once the service is over, you need to leave as soon as possible so the next lot of people can come in - so it's quite difficult to get opportunities to meet and talk to people before or after the service. The after-church morning tea or supper we are used to in Sydney would be logistically and financially impossible with the numbers here! One church we have been to here might have 20,000 people attending over once weekend (Saturday night and 5 Sunday services)! As with large churches we know of in Sydney, these churches operate on a 'cell-based' structure, where people meet in smaller groups during the week, and this is how you get to know people and become part of a family of fellowship.

The atmosphere here is very different from that of Australia, where Christianity has been marginalised from the public sphere over the last few decades, especially in academia. In contrast, I have heard of lecturers here praying aloud at the beginning and end of each lecture to commit the time to God and ask for his help with the teaching and learning of the content. If I did anything like that in Australia I would likely be thrown out of the university! Here, you hardly have to convince anyone that there is a God - this is a widely acknowledged fact of life, from the city to the smallest village. The difference is in which God, god/s or spirit/s people worship.

Uganda is statistically 84% Christian, about half of which is Protestant and half Catholic. I gather that this total includes a degree of 'nominalism' (as it does in Australia) and also a degree of mixing Christianity with traditional tribal religions and ancestor worship. But, whether sincere or not, the language of faith is everywhere: from the taxi-buses that hurtle around the city with slogans such as 'God's Blessing' or 'Jesus Saves' emblazoned across the windscreen, to the Bible verses on the majority of greeting cards that you find for sale, to the way many people greet each other saying 'Praise the Lord' or 'God bless you'.

Interestingly, although only a small percentage are Muslim, some Muslim festivals are marked as public holidays (such as Idd, which was celebrated last Friday) - apparently this is a legacy of the dictatorship of Idi Amin (in office 1971-1979), who was of the Muslim faith. The majority who are not Muslim are not averse to the extra public holiday, though! It caused me to reflect on what might happen if, as the Muslim population of Australia increases, a suggestion were put forward to make some Muslim festivals public holidays. I imagine there would be considerable resistance.

Postcard from Uganda: More local expressions

Since my last 'postcard' about language, I have begun to learn some words in Luganda and learnt some more local English expressions.

• "sorry" - used in the same way as Australian English (to apologise for something you've done), but also to express sympathy for something that clearly has nothing to do with you. For example, I was telling a Ugandan friend that we had discovered a decomposing rat in our apartment, and she said "Oh, sorry!". I have heard it many times since in similar kinds of situations - e.g. when telling someone I'd had food poisoning or had hurt myself getting into a bus. It sounds strange to my ears because in Australian English, in those kinds of situations people are more likely to say something like "Oh no, you poor thing!" or "Oh, that's terrible!" or "How awful!" You may hear "I'm sorry to hear that" in AE, but it's more likely to come in response to more serious bad news such as a death or chronic illness or relationship breakdown or loss of a job.
• "we pray from…" - instead of saying 'we go to such-and-such church', most of the people I've met say 'we pray from such-and-such church'. So now instead of asking "which church do you go to?" I try to remember to ask "where do you pray from?". I'm intrigued as to how this phrase came about, though, as Christians know we can pray anywhere and God will hear us. Maybe I'll find out one of these days.
• "benching" - this is a genuinely Kampalan term, and in fact it originated at Makerere University where we are living and working! Apparently it stems back to the days when there were just two residential halls, one for women and one for men. The one for women, Mary Stewart Hall, had some benches placed around the foyer and the young men used to go and sit there on the benches waiting for the object of their desire to come walking through so they could talk to them or take them out. They could sit there for hours, and so the expression 'He's benching' came about to describe this activity. Now the meaning of the term has apparently broadened. One meaning is when someone you know comes to your place and hangs around and it's hard to get rid of them - "they're benching". Another meaning is when someone is trying to get to know someone of the opposite sex and tries to spend as much time around them as possible - "he/she's benching". Apparently there are other Makerere terms that have become widely used, but I have yet to find out what they are.
• "where do you stay/sleep?" - if someone wants to find out where you live, they ask "where do you stay?" or "where do you sleep?". I've even had someone asking me "are you sleeping around?", which means "are you staying somewhere around here?", not the meaning Australian (and probably American and British) English speakers would understand from it! However, if someone says "he/she's sleeping around", it means they are away for a few days, e.g. out of town on business or visiting a friend or relative in another place. A Ugandan friend told us that this expression had caused a lot of concern to her British-English-speaking friend who was looking for her in Kampala and was told "oh, she's sleeping around" because she was out of town!
• what not to ask: as in many places, it's very rude to ask a woman's age. For men, the question of age is nowhere near as rude as asking how many cows he has (which would be like asking someone how much he earns or how much he has in assets).

Of thunderstorms and instantiation

The wet season has arrived in Kampala, and we can expect to have a thunderstorm at least once during most days. The other morning there was an almighty one that woke us up around 6.30am and, as you do when half asleep, we started talking about meteorology and climatic expectations in the different places where we have lived.

Image from typicalugandan.tumblr.com

When thunderstorms happen daily and the rain lasts maybe half an hour and then the weather is clear again for most of the day, thunderstorms are not very newsworthy. You hardly hear anyone talking about 'the thunderstorm early this morning' because that's no different from the day before when there was one in the afternoon, and the day before that, and the day before that... When they occur only every so often, as in Sydney, it's much more noteworthy and may even make the news, and much of the conversation of casual encounters refers to the event - 'did you hear the thunderstorm this morning?', 'well, the rain was so heavy at our place that our guttering was overflowing!', etc.

It reminded me of Halliday's illustration of the difference between a language system and an instance (the 'cline of instantiation'), using the analogy of climate and weather (Halliday 1992: see also Halliday & Matthiessen 2004:26-27). Describing language from an instance perspective is like describing the day's weather: well, it was clear in the morning, then it clouded over and there was a thunderstorm and it rained for about half an hour, and then it cleared up again. This would be a fair description of the weather in Kampala on most of the days this past week. It's a specific description of a particular instance that you experience.

Describing language from a system perspective, on the other hand, is like describing the climate of a geographical area: it's a view of what the tendencies are over a much longer period, when you take each instance into account. For Kampala, there is not a great deal of difference in practice between what you experience on a given day, and what the probabilities are across a given year. The average maximum throughout the year is between 24 and 27 degrees C, with reasonably high humidity, and high annual rainfall (mainly concentrated in March, April and May, and then October and November). This climatic 'system' can also be described even more generally as a 'tropical wet and dry climate'.
The relationship between the instance and the system gives an instance its 'value' for those observing it. Hence, the 'value' of a storm in Kampala is different from the value of a storm in Sydney, and therefore the 'newsworthiness' of a thunderstorm is different for people in each place.

It's not as if thunderstorms here have no impact on everyday life, though. The main 'life impact' is that rain causes even greater havoc on the roads, worsens potholes, and makes it very unadvisable to try walking along any roads or going by boda-boda. So class might be cancelled if the teacher can't get to uni, all because of a systemically predictable thunderstorm!

Halliday, M. A. K. (1992). The notion of context in language education. In Le, T. & McCausland, M. (eds), Interaction and development: Proceedings of the international conference, Vietnam, 30 March - 1 April 1992. University of Tasmania: Language Education.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.

Semiotic Resources of Kampala Boda-Boda Drivers

There are literally thousands of boda-bodas in Kampala. Boda-bodas are essentially public transport by motorbike. There is apparently no system of licensing or accreditation for someone to start charging a fee for members of the public to hop on the back of his (I haven't yet seen any female boda-boda drivers) motorbike to get to their destination. Anyone who owns a motorbike and needs a bit of extra cash can do it, it seems. They also operate as couriers for goods, not just passengers: on Saturday I saw a huge pile of mattresses, at least 2m high, being carried on the back of one! Some people even move house by boda, we are told.

Boda-bodas have a reputation, even among the locals, for being reckless drivers. We have seen them cross the median strip and drive on the wrong side of the road if there is a traffic jam. We have also seen them driving every which way around roundabouts. This is with a passenger (or two) on the back, who of course has no control over how or where the driver drives the motorbike on the way to the destination!

Despite all this, they are very widely used, even by local friends we think are relatively cautious, and are the fastest way to get around, especially in the traffic-clogged roads. A local friend of ours studying at the university, who has a very nice car, says if he's running late for class he leaves his car at home and jumps on a boda-boda. Yesterday some expats working locally told us some American friends of theirs who had a seriously sick child put the child and her mother on the back of a boda-boda to get the to a reliable medical centre as fast as possible, as the international hospital where they initially went had not the facilities or staff to attend to the child as quickly as her condition required.

There are always at least a dozen boda-bodas hanging around the entrance of the university (this is known as a boda-boda 'stage') and I pass them daily when I go to buy food for dinner (our fridge doesn't work too well, hence the daily excursions). So over the past 2 and a bit weeks I have observed a range of semiotic resources that the boda-boda drivers use to attract customers.

• the wave: if the boda-boda driver sees you coming from a distance, he raises his hand as high as he can (perhaps to elevate himself above the other drivers around him) and waves at you to come.
• the shout: as you come closer, the driver shouts 'mam! mam!' I don't yet know what they shout if you're a male.
• the beep: if you are walking along the road, and a boda-boda is driving along the road nearby without a passenger, he'll beep at you to let you know there's a ride available if you want one.

One good thing about boda-bodas is that they know the city very well and are good people to ask for directions!

Postcard from Uganda: language

Greetings from Kampala, Uganda! We arrived about 10 days ago to work as visiting scholars at Makerere University, and there have been many interesting things to observe in this initial time, including some language points.

I have noticed the following systematic uses in Ugandan English that are different from Australian English, which may well be a feature of other Englishes elsewhere:

• 'pick' - instead of 'pick up', e.g. 'I called the number you gave, but no one picked, so can you call me back on Monday?' and 'I'll come and pick you around 2.30pm'.
• 'thank you too' - in response to a 'thank you', as an adjacency pair, e.g. in the supermarket when I thank the checkout person they often say this, as opposed to just 'thank you'.
• 'born-agains' - used to differentiate Christians who have been spiritually born again from 'nominal' Christians. For example, our apartment attendant asked 'are you people born-agains?' and another friend introduced us to someone else saying 'these people are born again, too'. In Australia asking 'are you people Christians' would probably get the answer she was looking for because people are less likely to identify as Christians unless they are actually believers. But a larger proportion of Ugandans would identify as Christians (statistically about 84%!), at least nominally, so the word 'Christian' doesn't have quite the same value here. It's almost the default. Hence 'born-again' is a useful alternative.
• 'done' - meaning finished, e.g. waiters/waitresses might ask 'are you done', rather than 'have you finished?' This usage also occurs in American English I think. But there is another usage, when a waiter/waitress might say 'the chicken is done', meaning there is no more. I think this meaning is less common in American English, as the expression would normally mean 'it is cooked and ready'.
• 'You are welcome' - as an elaborated form of the simple 'welcome', which is more common in Australian English. I have heard this from a wide range of people: new colleagues at the university, students, supermarket attendants (especially the friendly guys at the meat counter at the nearby supermarket), waiters/waitresses,  and people at the church we visited. I find it rather endearing and somehow more sincere than just 'welcome'.
• 'dear' - seems to be used as a generic term to address someone who might be a peer (rather than specifically as a term of endearment), e.g. the young woman who sat next to me in church on Sunday wrote me a note on her bulletin that said 'My dear, I would liked to speak to you after the service', and a colleague replied to a line in an email I sent with 'thank you dear'.
• 'what': in a number of teaching contexts (church sermon, Bible study group, introductory linguistics lecture), I have heard the teachers/leaders using a construction in which they use 'what' in a sentence to prompt the hearers to supply the word they are about to say (at least internally). An example (loosely based on a lecture I attended this morning) would be something like 'Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words. We say that words have one or more morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units of words. For example the word 'students' has two meaningful units: 'student' and 's'. So we say it has two - what? - morphemes.' The construction has a particular prosodic and intonational pattern - there is a slight pause before the 'what' and and a slight rising intonation on 'what' followed by falling intonation on the rest of the clause (which is usually just one key word or phrase that the teacher wants to emphasise).
• etc: On a number of occasions I've heard teachers (and some others not in a teaching role) use 'etc' to indicate that they are providing an incomplete list. But instead of saying 'etcetera', they say 'e. t. c', i.e. spelling out the abbreviation.

Hopefully I will discover more as we go along!

What stops you from learning?

What things stop you (or have stopped you) from making the most of the educational opportunities available to you?

Perhaps...

• a lack of interest? (the lecturer obviously knows what they’re talking about but is really boring to listen to)

• a lack of motivation? (my parents want me to study this but I’d rather be doing a different course)

• a lack of energy? (working part time, studying full time, and trying to maintain a social life means sleep is hard to come by)

• a lack of time? (all my extra-curricular activities are making it hard to get my assignments done well and on time)

• a lack of money? (it’s hard to afford to buy text books and a computer, as well as pay rent and buy groceries, when I only work a few hours a week as a casual in retail)

Or...

• the lack of a pencil?

The late Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, in his book 'The Shadow of the Sun’, wrote about an encounter with Ethiopian children:

“It is enough to stop briefly in a village, a town, or simply in a field - a group of children will instantly materialise. All of them indescribably tattered. Little shirts, pants - all frayed and shredded beyond belief. Their entire treasure, their sole nourishment, is a small calabash with a bit of water in it. Each piece of bread or banana will disappear, inhaled, in a fraction of a second. Hunger for these children is something permanent, a way of life, second nature. And yet they do not ask for bread or fruit, or even for money.
They ask for a pencil. The price? Ten cents. Yes, but where can they possibly get ten cents?
They would all like to go to school, they would like to learn. And sometimes they do go to school (a village school is simply a spot in the shade of an enormous mango tree), but they cannot learn to write because they have nothing to write with - they do not own a pencil.” (Kapuscinski, 1998, pp.230-231)

• the lack of feminine hygiene products, meaning that, if you’re a girl, you can’t go to school for a week every month?

A research group from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, spent some time in remote regions of Uganda focusing on literacy and developmental needs in the communities. In one study, they discovered that the teenage girls were all getting very behind in their education. They couldn’t go to school while they had their period because they couldn’t afford any sanitary products, and so they were missing a week of school every month. A number of innovative aid projects started as a result of this finding. One of these was Afripads, which set up a local manufacturing project to make affordable, reusable sanitary products so that the monthly period would no longer be an obstacle to girls going to school. It also provided work and income for local women involved in the manufacturing.

Is the family history?

I recently read an article that made me quite sad about the explicit untruths and inaccuracies that are allowed to be published in reputable publications. It was an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald written by Guardian columnist George Monbiot, in which he claimed that those who advocate heterosexual marriage have fabricated a history of the family as a heterosexual institution.

Rather than go on for ages about all the things that bothered me about the article, I’ll just focus on one, the following paragraph:

The unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the modern Christian cult of the nuclear family is a marvel to behold. Its promoters are followers of a man born out of wedlock and allegedly sired by someone other than his mother's partner. Jesus insisted that ''if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters … he cannot be my disciple''. He issued no such injunction against homosexuality: the threat he perceived was heterosexual and familial love, which competed with the love of God.

There are some truths in this passage that mask the untruths and inaccuracies of his interpretation of the Bible. I think it’s true that the modern 'nuclear family’ (mother, father and biological children living together) is not itself a Biblically mandated institution. Rather, it is a cultural manifestation of the Biblical principles of lifelong monogamy (Gen 2:23-24, Ex 19:14, Mt 5:31-32), multiplication (Gen 1:26-28), and passing on the knowledge of God and His promises and commands to the next generation (Gen 12:1-3, 17:7, Deut 6:1-9). We must be careful to separate out what is merely cultural from what is necessarily Christian. Sometimes they work together, but often they do not. In the case of the nuclear family, it’s a cultural phenomenon that seems compatible with the Biblical principles. Living in community with other families or generations of an extended family could also work, and in fact the descriptions of the early church in Acts suggest this kind of arrangement (e.g. Acts 2:42-47).

The Bible passage Monbiot refers to here is Luke 14:25-26. In the passage immediately before this (Luke 14:15-24), Jesus had been talking to people at a dinner party at the home of the ruler of the Pharisees, telling a parable of a rich man who gave a great banquet and invited all his friends but when the time for the banquet came, they all sent their apologies because they had work to do, or economic concerns to act on, or family to attend to. So the man had to find other guests among the poor and homeless - those whom respectable people wouldn’t normally invite to a banquet - to fill the house for the banquet. There should be nothing to distract them, and even if there was, they would recognise the value of the offer and accept it.

In the passage in question (Luke 14:25-26), the scene changes to Jesus speaking to the enormous crowds that were accompanying him. But I think Luke wants us to make the connection with the previous passage, as the point is the same. Jesus extends an invitation to everyone, including those who have all kinds of potential distractions, and we must count the cost of accepting his generous and valuable offer.

As Jesus says elsewhere (Mt 6:24), you cannot serve two masters - we either serve Jesus as King, or our family, or our job, or whatever. The same underlying principle was inherent in the command given to God’s people at the revelation of his commandments at Mount Sinai (Deut 6:4-5) - "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength". We are to be undivided. But we are also to love our neighbours (including our family as well as complete strangers) as ourselves, and so Jesus’ challenge to ‘hate’ our own parents and siblings does not absolve us of family responsibility. Our family responsibility rather becomes part of the way we love and serve God and obey his commands.

While it’s true that Jesus did not issue any direct injunction against homosexuality, it’s grossly misleading to say that Jesus perceived 'heterosexual love’ as a ‘threat’. In the passage Monbiot quotes, Jesus was merely warning his would-be disciples that following him would mean they could not let their family get in the way of their allegiance to Jesus and obedience to God. On the contrary, Jesus explicitly condoned faithful heterosexual marriage, as on several occasions he spoke strongly against adultery and sexual immorality. He had hard words to say to the Samaritan woman he met at a well (John 4:1-30), who had been married five times and was now sleeping with someone other than her husband. To the woman caught in adultery in John 8, Jesus said ‘from now on sin no more’. He wanted (and still wants) people to live God’s way, the way they were created for, walking in the light rather than in darkness (John 8:12).

Book Review: The Language of God (Francis Collins)

A few months ago I wrote that I had started reading Francis Collins’ book 'The Language of God’. I have now finished it! That took a bit longer than anticipated... So I thought I’d write a review of it, having also given a verbal review of it at training this week.

As I said in my earlier post, and as you can learn from the book’s blurb and Wikipedia, Francis Collins is trained as a physician and geneticist, and was head of the Human Genome Project which did some real ground-breaking work in the late nineties and ended up presenting the world with a complete ‘map’ of the human genome. He is now Director of the National Institutes of Health in the USA, having been appointed by Obama in 2009.

Although it’s called ‘The Language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief’ it’s not really about trying to prove God with scientific evidence, which can’t ever be done as far as we know. The title is a bit of a misnomer in that respect. What Collins is trying to do is explain why he believes in God and why, for him, being a scientist does not present an obstacle to faith in God. It’s an argument about the compatibility of science and faith more than an argument for faith.

The book is set out in three parts: the first section is about the perceived chasm between science and faith; the second section is about questions of human existence and Collins’ findings from the human genome project and related investigations; and the third section is on the relationship between faith and science in the past, and the options for now, highlighting that even if people insist on choosing between science and God, they are still putting faith in one or the other.

I enjoyed the way the author shared his life story (as I mentioned in my earlier post), and the way he systematically explained his scientific observations and reasons for his beliefs about God and about the world. I found it clearly written and strategically crafted, and the scientific explanations (e.g. how human DNA works) were accessible but not patronising. The crafting of the book intrigued me because, for most of the book, there is no mention of Jesus; I wondered all along “so he believes in God, but what does he think of Jesus?”. That made me quite wary of his argument, not being very sure about where he stood in relation to Jesus. It’s only at the very end of the book, when he has made a very compelling argument for his beliefs, that he finally shares his testimony about how he came to realise that Jesus was Lord, and decided to follow him.

There were several ideas and debates that I thought were set out in a helpful way, for example different world views and objections to religion, and questions about human existence. There was also an interesting discussion of historical changes in the relationship between science and faith especially in relation to discoveries that we now take for granted (e.g. the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around - a theory which brought Copernicus, its first advocate, strong criticism, and saw Galileo, a firm supporter, tried by the Roman Inquisition and put under house arrest until his death!). I also found the appendix on bioethics a very worthwhile inclusion, as it was generally well reasoned and sensible about issues that tend to be over-sensationalised in the public arena.

I did have a few reservations about the book, though. I’m not completely sold on Collins’ ideas about theistic evolution, and need to do some more investigation before I can come to my own conclusions. But I appreciate his strength of conviction and the reasoning he has gone through to get to his ‘BioLogos’ perspective on the way the organisms of the world came to be the way they are now. He is fairly critical of creationism and intelligent design, however, which has no doubt alienated a lot of Christians who identify strongly with those perspectives. I also thought that leaving his testimony right to the very end, while strategic in one sense, may mean that many readers never read it if they abandon the book part-way through (for whatever reason), and that would be a shame.

I would say it’s a worthwhile read for non-believers who are interested in reading a scientist’s testimony of their faith, as they get the science and the faith reasoned out together. It’s also a good place to go for people wanting to form a view on the evolution/creation debate - but just as one perspective. One would need to read other perspectives also, and make an informed comparison. I’ve been recommended ‘Unnatural Enemies’ by Kirsten Birkett, although this one is also from a Christian perspective.

The journey continues...

Students are people, not numbers

Last week the Macquarie University Vice Chancellor’s blog published a post by Arts Faculty Executive Dean Prof John Simons about the current debate about universities being allowed to widen participation through an abolishment of government caps on student numbers.

There are so many variables and issues involved that it is really hard to work out what’s a reasonable position. But there were a few things that he said in his post that I want to respond to as a teacher of first-year students who wants see students properly cared for.

"What this debate is about, of course, is widening access. It’s about giving people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to benefit from higher education. It’s about being fair. It’s about making sure we use all the talent available not just some of it. This appears to be scary."
The only scary thing here is the suspicion that it’s not actually about universities wanting to give more people the opportunity to receive a higher education. If universities were serious about wanting more people to benefit from higher education, rather than just be entered into the system, I would expect to be able to see them putting infrastructure in place in anticipation of increased student numbers in order to be able to care for them properly. This would include in particular employing adequate numbers of full-time/permanent teaching staff so that class sizes could be kept at reasonable levels (15, rather than 25 or more!) and so that there could be sufficient staff consultation hours to go around to support students who need extra help (particularly in first year).

"Aptitude for success in higher education is not necessarily the same as aptitude for success at school."
I completely agree with this, having seen a number of my school friends who had not been brilliant at school absolutely flourishing when they got to university. They had increased motivation from being able to choose their own study paths and be accountable to themselves for what they did or didn’t do. However, lowering entrance scores is not necessarily the best way to give increase participation from lower socio-economic backgrounds. There are many other underlying variables that are involved, such as the quality of high schools in such areas, students’  and parents' attitudes to and support for education, and the simple fact of the need to survive financially through university.

Many students who come into university on a lower entrance score are simply not ready for university. It can be a very difficult transition culturally (although recent efforts to implement ’transition programs’ at various universities have helped alleviate this somewhat), let alone intellectually. The problem of maturity can certainly also be true of students who gain entry with higher scores, but would perhaps not mean the difference between passing and failing - just passing instead of getting a credit or higher.

It may be too much to expect students who have not so far achieved well academically to be able to keep up with a full-time student load AND maintain a part-time job (or multiple) AND carry out other life responsibilities, and be able to pass. And so I wonder if granting entry to students who have not so far shown the aptitude at school is giving them a false notion that they will be able to pass their university subjects and gain a degree. So if such students continue to be enrolled, there need to be greater support mechanisms - including financial support - to allow them to spend the required time and intellectual effort to keep on top of the new ideas they are learning and be able to flourish at uni so that they gain the social and intellectual capital to effect positive social change. Otherwise we will just see increased enrolments followed by large numbers of withdrawals, and I don’t think that’s the desired outcome.

The power of words

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". From childhood we are encouraged to dismiss the power of words to affect us. But how much power can words really have?

As a linguist, I'm a big fan of words and how they fit together to allow us to make meaning. I think there is a great deal of power in words and language, for good or ill. Indeed, there are some sub-fields of Linguistics - I'm thinking of Critical Discourse Analysis and Positive Discourse Analysis - that have sprung up with the aim of deconstructing, respectively, discourse that embodies "ideologically driven discrimination, with respect to gender, ethnicity, class and related social variables" (Martin 2006) and discourse that "functions to make the world a better place" (Martin 2006). The very existence of these trends of linguistic application assumes that language has the power to harm or improve society, and perhaps even individual lives.


I was thinking about this because the 'mid year conference' at UNSW, where I'm doing some ministry work with staff and postgrad students, is on the topic of 'Beyond Words', focusing on what happens when Christians read the Bible:

4000 years ago, Moses encountered God on Mt Sinai. It was beyond words. The storm raged, the lightning struck and the fire and smoke poured out of heaven. Today, Christians read a slightly beaten up paperback book over breakfast and claim to be meeting God. 

Aren't we missing something? Why doesn't God speak directly to me? Should I expect a still small voice or something more? 

 You can watch one of the video ads for the conference on Youtube - it highlights the fact that many forms of everyday language can have a significant impact on our lives. It also prompts us to wonder why Christians don't often register the same kind of impact when we read the Bible, which we believe to be the words of the Living God!


The Bible tells me that I should love it and delight in it (Psalm 119), store it up in my heart (Psalm 119:11), meditate on it (Psalm 119:148), and even value it above money (Psalm 119:72) and food (Matthew 4:1-4)! God promises that if I read His Word with sincerity and obedience, and with Him working in me by His Spirit, the words of scripture will give me life and blessing (James 1:25), guide my decisions (Psalm 119:105), and turn me from doing things that displease God (Psalm 119:11).


Furthermore, the gospel - the story that Jesus Christ, the Song of God, dies for the sin of the world and was raised again to rule the world - has the power to save those who believe it! "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16). That’s some truly powerful words!


References:
Martin, J. R. (2006). Positive Discourse Analysis: Power, Solidarity and Change, Journal of English Studies, 4(14), 21-35.

Christianity is not incompatible with multiculturalism

Last July, I blogged in response to the shocking news about Norwegian Anders Breivik, who killed around 70 of this countrymen and was unhelpfully labelled 'Christian' although his actions demonstrate otherwise and his motivations seemed rather more racial, political and fearful than religious.

This week Breivik has been facing trial in Norway for his actions (see reports from BBC, The Guardian, ABC). At one stage he was allowed to make a 30-min statement, which became 70 min! I find that rather disturbing, but I suppose if that is a right of anyone standing trial then he is entitled to it.

Apparently one of his arguments was that 'Multiculturalism is a self-destructing ideology'. He seems to think that the 'Christian minority' he is supposedly trying to defend cannot be compatible with multiculturalism. I have already argued that the labeling of Breivik as 'Christian' was unhelpful, and here we see further evidence. There is no incompatibility between Christianity and multiculturalism.

Recently I have been reading the book of Revelation, and one of the most exciting parts for me is where the writer, the apostle John, tells that he "looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with plan branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"' (Rev 7:9-10).

This is not the only place in the Bible that speaks of people from all nations coming to salvation through Jesus (the Lamb who was slain), either. Both the Old Testament (the Jewish sacred book included in the Christian Bible) and the New Testament have many references to this idea. The Old Testament tells us that when Solomon built the first temple, he prayed to God: "when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name's sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you" (1 Kings 8:41-43).

In the New Testament, we see Jesus commissioning his disciples after his resurrection. He says "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20).

There are many other places besides. I get the impression from Revelation that the final state will not be a homogeneous people all of one colour and language, but a multicultural group united in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain for every one for them no matter what their language or ethnicity. Awesome!

How to write a linguistics essay

This week I'm busy marking first-year essays which asked the students to discuss the context and purpose of a set text with reference to the linguistic and graphic features of the text in 500 words (just a short one as a diagnostic assessment early in the semester). I have about 100 of them to mark in total and as usual I'm finding myself writing the same kind of feedback on most of them.

This genre of essay is often a tricky one for first-year students to figure out, because they don't have to do any extra reading and they haven't learnt much in the way of tools or technical terms by the end of week 3 when the assignment is due. It requires working out what they think the context and purpose of the text is and then making an argument based on the decision they make. It also involves working out what features of the text can be pointed to as evidence for their judgement about its context and purpose. On top of that, they need to be able to organise their ideas into a coherent essay using appropriate academic expression.

There are a few recurrent issues that I keep having to address in my feedback, and so I thought I'd make a list of tips responding to them. Perhaps future linguistics students might be able to benefit from this - essay-writing advice is usually too general to be able to help work out what an analytical linguistics essay requires.

• Work out what your answer to the question is in general terms. This will form the basis of your introduction and help you make a plan for the rest of your essay. For example, if the text is a book review and you think the context and purpose of the text is to summarise and evaluate the book and recommend it to readers from the academic community in the discipline of Russian history, your introduction might say something like "The book review of [book name] by [reviewer] is written with the purpose of providing a summary and evaluation of the book's contents and recommending the book to readers, in particular Russian history scholars." In one sentence, you have introduced the text and answered the question about the purpose of the text as well as its intended audience.
• Identify the features of the text that help you understand that the purpose of the text is to summarise, evaluate and recommend the book and that the intended readers are Russian history scholars. For example, there might be a paragraph of the text giving a chapter-by-chapter outline of the book; there might be lots of summarising, comparing & contrasting or evaluative language; and there might be lots of positive evaluations of the book, especially at the end of the text. Pick out one or two brief phrases from each of these features that would support your claim most strongly.
• Summarise the features you have identified in a general way so that you can include a brief and general indication of them in your introduction. This will be a signal to your reader of the points that you will cover in your essay. For example, you could follow the introductory sentence in point 1 above with something like this: "These contextual features of the text are evident from the linguistic choices such as summarisation, comparison, and evaluation."
• Your essay should always move from the general to the specific. The introduction should give a general overview of your argument and the points you'll make (as demonstrated above) and therefore should not include any specific examples or evidence. Save that for the body of your essay where you argue each point. This principle also applies to each paragraph in the body of your text (see below).
• Write a topic sentence for each paragraph stating a general point about the context and purpose of the text. For the book review example, you might have three paragraphs: one about the summarising and evaluating function of the text, one about the recommending function of the text, and one about the target readers of the text (depending on the specifics of the question asked). Your topic sentences should be linked back to your introduction and should just be observations of the text, e.g. not 'The text contains lots of evaluative words...' but 'The text has a primary function of summarising and evaluating the book. This can be see through the use of a chapter-by-chapter outline in paragraph 2, e.g. 'In chapter 1, the author... In chapter 2'.' I'm using fairly basic expression here just to give an example of the unfolding of meanings required in each paragraph. Start with the general (the main point for that paragraph), and move towards the specific (the examples from the text).

The Language of God

I had some days off sick this week, which gave me the opportunity to do a bit of long-awaited leisure reading. So I started reading 'The Language of God' (2006, Free Press), which I found amongst the small collection of books my husband already owned before I moved in with my several extra bookshelves worth!

I was initially attracted by the title, as you can imagine - but it's not really about 'language' of the kind that I study. It's written by Dr Francis Collins, who is the head of the Human Genome Project, and the title is taken from US President Bill Clinton's speech at the official public launch of the findings of the Human Genome Project, the human DNA sequence, in 2000. Clinton said: "Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift." (see full transcript here).

Collins' aim in the book is to dispel the notion that a rigorous science precludes serious belief in a transcendent God "by arguing that belief in God can be an entirely rational choice, and that the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science" (p.3). As part of this, he gives his own testimony as a scientist with a firm faith in God.

I haven't finished reading it yet (only up to chapter 3) but I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the first two chapters. In the first chapter, Collins shares the story of his interesting childhood, his growing thirst for scientific knowledge, his studies in chemistry and then medicine, and ultimately, sparked by the simple question of a dying woman, his discovery of a God who is there, and who takes a personal interest in human beings.

He also shares some of the trains of thought he went through during this time of discovery, inspired by the writings of C.S. Lewis, another academic who had taken a very similar path from atheism to faith. These included the perplexing fact that "the concept of right and wrong appears to be universal among all the members of the human species" and that "this law appears to apply peculiarly to human beings" (p.23). I was encouraged and excited to read his reflections on the differences between humans and animals on this point, as this is an issue that has been on my mind, as seen in last week's blog post. I was glad to find some support for my ideas from a more knowledgeable source. It's nice to know I might be thinking on the right track!